While preparing for a presentation about the return of the Descartes letter, I came upon this speech from Secretary of the Board of Managers, Howard Comfort, dedicating Roberts Hall in 1903, which together with the Charles Roberts Autograph Letters Collection, had been donated to the College by Roberts’ widow, Lucy Branson Roberts. The speech is included in its entirety, having been transcribed by our student assistant, Kyle McCloskey ’11.

Remarks at the opening of Roberts Hall, Haverford College – Fourth Month 30th 1903

By Howard Comfort

It seems fitting, at the first formal gathering in this new building, that a few words should be said regarding its creation and purpose.

In 1860, Charles Roberts, descended from Welsh  ancestors, entered Haverford.

In the chapter he wrote for the Haverford History, he calls his College days, “the Civil War Period” – the weary days of the great struggle between the north and the South, when thousands of troops rolled by on the railroad which then bounded the college grounds. On one occasion Lincoln bowed to the students from the rear platform of a passing train, while on his way to take up his duties as the newly elected President. Charles Roberts tells us it was the day of small things in college and without.  The conditions were however favorable to the development of mental training, in the quiet student of simple tasks, who loved reading and study. In the family life that then prevailed, students were drawn more closely together than now, so friendships were formed and interests aroused, that lasted through life.

Charles Roberts

In 1864, Charles Roberts was one of the first class that rec’d their diplomas from the platform of the then new Alumni Hall. During a successful business career of nearly thirty years, he took an active part in many societies and organizations, founded to promote historical, artistic, scientific, benevolent, antiquarian and educational purposes.

It was as a member of the City Councils of Philadelphia, that he was best known to the general public. He served in the Councilmanic Chamber continuously for 18 years, up to the time of his death. In this service he faithfully, ably and honestly performed his trust, setting an excellent example of strict integrity and fidelity to public duty.

Secure in the confidence of his constituents, he retained the personal esteem and friendship of his opponents by never impugning their motives, thus confining his criticism to objectionable measures.

This evening, Charles Roberts’ connection with this college is of especial interest. He was a member of the Board of Managers for thirty years. During part of this time he was President of the Alumni Association and Secretary of the Corporation. He was, perhaps the most regular attender of Board and Committee meetings, where his ripe judgment and Knowledge of College affairs will he greatly missed. A liberal contributor to every good cause, he was ever ready to answer the not infrequent calls of his Alma Mater. Therefore when his premature death occurred fifteen months ago, his colleagues had no expectations from the estate of one [who] had already done so much for the College.

In March of last year, Mrs Roberts informed the Board, that she wished to present to the College an Assembly Hall, in memory of her husband. The only condition attached, was that the new Hall should contain fire-proof rooms for the reception of the Autograph Collections, to be given the College, and to be Known as the Charles Roberts Autograph Collection and kept intact by the College.

Group in front of Roberts Hall, 1940s

The Managers gratefully accepted this generous offer, with a keen sense of its fitness as a memorial of one whose interest in our Institution had been so constant & fruitful.

Mrs Roberts has co-operated with the Building Committee in the selection of a site, and has given valuable help in the consideration and revision of plans, prepared by Cope and Stewardson, architects.

Owing to difficulties which attend many building operations of recent times, completion has been delayed, but we are glad to welcome you this evening to this room, which, even in its present conditions, promises to be a most convenient assembly room for our larger academic gatherings.

When all is finished, we expect to have administrative offices at the right of the front entrance, for the dispensation of such laws and orders as are incident to the Presidential office.

From Charles Roberts' student autograph book

On the left are two fire-proof rooms for the final home of the collection of rare manuscripts gathered by our late friend. As an undergraduate, he had the usual youthful desire to collect, and early began to accumulate papers and autographs to be pasted in an old fashioned scrap-book.

Through many years, before so many collections were in the field, Charles Roberts was a judicious and constant buyer of rare books, portraits, prints, autographs and manuscripts of a literary and historical character.

The autograph collection alone has been conservatively estimated as worth $85,000. It includes the letters of many literary men of this country and Europe, and of nearly all the statesmen and public characters of the United States.

Mrs Roberts has been giving much attention to the best way to care for this collection, so as to combine safety with a proper degree of accessibility, one of the most difficult problems for curators to solve. It is her desire, as we knew it would have been that of her husband, to allow as much opportunity for examination and study as is proper, — and if any mistake is made it will be on the side of liberality.

Some in this audience can recall, as I do, their pleasure in opportunities to examine some of these manuscripts, under the guidance of their late owner.

With the suppressed enthusiasm of the antiquarian, he would draw treasure after treasure from well-ordered receptacles, and point out the distinctive features of each. I remember his showing some letters of Shelly and Burns, to illustrate their care in the details of paper, penmanship, the framing of paragraphs, and accurate use of language.

A study of this collection will go far to confirm the impressions that the art of letter writing as practiced one hundred years (and less) ago, has been lost in the rushing activity of this generation.

The cost of this Hall, when completed, will be about $53,000, which, — added to the market value of the autographs, makes this memorial worth nearly $140,000, expressed in the measure of material things. Measured by the standard of academic sentiment, who will attempt to fix its value through the coming years?

For the love and interest which prompted this magnificent gift, I esteem it a duty and a privilege, to thank Lucy Branson Roberts in the name of the Corporation and of all students past and present, and still more on behalf of the wider constituency we call friends of the College — and of the innumerable company of future generations of students, who will seek the truth beneath these shades, long after all present have passed away.

Post by Bridget Gibbons (’13), student worker in Special Collections.

This entry is part of our monthly series to highlight entries from the 20,000 letter Charles Roberts Autograph Letter Collection.

Langston Hughes was a busy man when he amiably corresponded with a biographer/ journalist on May 20, 1956.  The American-born jazz poet and face of the Harlem Renaissance was unable to give the time to search for a copy of his piece Waldorf Astoria because he was “so rushed with a new book, A Pictorial History of the Negro, that I just don’t have a spare moment for basement research.”

Hughes describes his current work and notes that some of his blues poems are being set to music, including Love is Like Whisky and Cool Saturday Night, and the most recent, Lonely House from “Street Scene” in the June Christy album, Something Cool. He comments on his own moving picture which he wrote in 1939 with Clarence Muse, Way Down South, “it is still shown sometimes on TV—to my horror!” Additionally, his play, Emperor of Haiti was produced by Elsie Roxborough, and in his letter he denies speculation that he and Elsie were engaged to be married.

The interviewer wanted to get his hands on Hughes’ stark poem, Waldorf Astoria for good reason. In it he grazes his famous themes of racial and socioeconomic equality, especially in New York City. He challengingly contrasts the luxurious hotel which opened for the social elite during the Great Depression with the lifestyles of the urban poor and in doing so, gives, as he always does, a voice to the oppressed:

Have luncheon there this afternoon, all you jobless.
Why not?
Dine with some of the men and women who got rich off of
your labor, who clip coupons with clean white fingers
because your hands dug coal, drilled stone, sewed gar-
ments, poured steel to let other people draw dividends
and live easy.
(Or haven’t you had enough yet of the soup-lines and the bit-
ter bread of charity?)
Walk through Peacock Alley tonight before dinner, and get
warm, anyway. You’ve got nothing else to do.

Post by Deanna Bailey (’12), student worker in Special Collections.

This entry is part of our monthly series to highlight entries from the 20,000 letter Charles Roberts Autograph Letters Collection.

In a 1952 letter to Dr. Gilbert F. White, then president of Haverford College, Nobel Prize winning theoretical physicist Erwin Schrödinger compares himself to his close friend and colleague, Albert Einstein.  Rebels in the world of physics, Schrödinger and Einstein were just two of many scientists who made great contributions to the 20th century, a few of whom were able to come to Haverford due to the Philips Grant.

The Philips Grant consists of funds left by Haverford alum William Pyle Philips (Class of 1902) for two purposes: the purchase of rare books “which the college would not otherwise buy” and to invite “distinguished scientists and statesmen” to Haverford.  Among the rare books made affordable by the Philips grant are a few of Special Collections’ most notable items, including a copy of Copernicus’s De revolutionibus orbium caelestium, Castiglione’s The Courtier, and Marlowe’s The Famous Tragedy of the Rich Jew of Malta. Among the scientists who were able to visit Haverford are Nobel Prize winners Niels Bohr and Enrico Fermi, and theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Presented with the prospect of giving a lecture at Haverford College, Schrödinger voices his concern about Haverford’s students who have studied other great physicists of the time, including Niels Bohr, Max Born, Werner Heisenberg, and John von Neumann.  He cautions Dr. White in this regard, saying that “[w]hile being on most friendly terms with all of them, I heartily disagree with them at the root…Your students would ask my opinion on one or the other point in the works of [Julian] Schwinger, [Sin-Itiro] Tomonaga and others.  I should shock them profoundly by saying, I have not read it, because I am physically unable to follow arguments that make no sense to me.”

Schrödinger goes on to tell Dr. White about an essay he included in the letter, which was to appear in a volume in honor of Louis de Broglie, a Nobel Prize winning physicist.  Schrödinger qualifies his work as “not a new theory–just rebellion, argued rebellion.”  He then continues talking about his close friend Albert Einstein at the end of the letter, saying that “Einstein too is a rebel.  But we are rebelling in opposite directions.  To meet Einstein once again is, of course, a great temptation.”

With the end of this letter the communication between Schrödinger and Haverford College seems to stop; however, packed with a wealth of historical references, the letter places Haverford College in the realm of great scientists like Erwin Schrödinger.  At the very least, the letter is indicative of the importance of grants, such as the Philips Grant, that secure Haverford’s position as a highly advanced scholarly institution worthy not only of bringing great minds to the college, but also producing great minds from its student body, something that Haverford continues to accomplish even today.

Post by John Washington (’10), former student worker in Special Collections.

This entry is part of our monthly series to highlight entries from the 20,000 letter Charles Roberts Autograph Letter Collection.

While frantically scouring (actually just casually reading) through the names of letter writers in the Charles Roberts Collection, I found an artist/poet that I came to admire, Dante Bariel Rossetti, who I first came to know  because of his sister, poet Christina Rossetti.   I was excited to write a blog post about Dante Gabriel Rossetti who was famous for poems and paintings like “Song and Music” and “Girl in a Green Dress,” respectively.  When I started looking through the physical collection, I came upon a folder not listed in the inventory.  it was labeled Christina Rossetti!  I put Dante Gabriel Rossetti aside for his more “interesting” younger sister.

Christina Rossetti is best known for her poem “Goblin Market.”  She is British by birth with an Italian background.  Christina Rossetti’s was devoted to her religion.  For Christina Rossetti, her Anglican religion greatly augmented her sickly life.  She denied two marriage offers based on the religion, or lack of religion, of the persons asking her—using her writing as a way to talk about her rejections (see poem “Remember“).

The letter I found by her in the Charles Roberts Collection is addressed to a Mr. Bryant, possibly William Cullen Bryant—the American poet famous for writing the poem “Thanatopsis.”  Christina’s words are to the point but gentle; just as situations would deem her throughout her life.  First letting Mr. Bryant know what was wrong with what he did then letting him off of the hook and accepting him.

Since it is not a long letter, allow me to post it for reading:

Dear Mr. Bryant,

Please do not feel hurt at what I am about to say. More than once I have been applied to by letter from some or other person unknown to me who alleges that you have named me, more or less, as a reference. One such letter reached me this afternoon. In every case I have replied in your favour. But I cannot approve of perfect strangers being thus referred to me. It was a different thing when you told me Mr. Caine knew and could vouch for you, he and I being acquainted; to him there was no difficulty in my writing, and as you know I did write and act on what he told me. I must ask you not to use my name thus to strangers. All the same I remain.

After studying Christina Rossetti for a number of years, I have learned to understand her sense of self (I wouldn’t say humor) that she portrays in her writing.  This letter excited me because it encompassed her views on life in a few short lines.

Check out the list of other amazing people who have letters in the Charles Roberts Collection!  There are American and British poets, scientists, and signers of the Declaration of Independence—just to name a few.  This is the perfect place to get an insight into the lives of historical figures that interest you!

Letterhead from Disney Studios, May 8, 1937

This entry is part of our monthly series to highlight letters

from the Charles Roberts Autograph Letter Collection.

Commencement occurred more than a month ago and recent Haverford grads are scouring the world looking for their new place in the world. A job search today usually calls for the applicant to summon all his initiative to find and secure a position.

But imagine a time when a newly successful and exciting industry petitioned Haverford to encourage their graduates to apply for employment! This happened in the spring of 1937 when Walt Disney wrote to the Dean encouraging applications from Haverford students who were able to meet the studio’s artistic requirements.

At the time of this letter the Disney Studio was on the verge of its incredible rise to success. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was released just six months after this letter came to Haverford. It was the first animated American film, first to be produced in color and first produced by Walt Disney. In 2008 the American Film Institute ranked Snow White as the greatest American animated film of all time.

Incredibly, a Haverford College graduate did join the Disney Studio in 1997! Andrew Millstein ’84 was named General Manager for Walt Disney Animation Studios in 2008 and was interviewed by the Alumni Association about his career path. View this blog posting in the Haverford News Room.

This entry is part of our monthly series to highlight entries from the 20,000 letter Charles Roberts Autograph Letter Collection.

"...if friendship proceeds from folly I am content to be always a fool"

Like his contemporaries, a number of letters by John Jay are found throughout the collection in his many roles as Founding Father: member of the First Continental Congress, President of the Continental Congress in 1779, diplomat, the second Governor of New York, and the first Justice of the United States Supreme Court.  One interesting aspect of the Charles Roberts Autograph Letter Collection is how it highlights the personal correspondence of many public figures.  Jay’s letter to his friend and future law partner Robert Livingston dated July 15, 1765 is one example.

The letter is a response to a previous letter from Robert Livingston and features two main subjects.  The first continues a dialog taking place over several letters in 1765 between Jay and Livingston about the meaning of friendship.  Jay believes his definition of friendship varies significantly from the common definition.  For Jay, true friendship allows for the free exchange of ideas and constructive criticism with the goal of self-betterment, “…if friendship proceeds from folly I am content to be always a fool, if friendship be the result of weakness, I pray that I many never be otherwise than weak.”  For his contemporaries, however, friendship is a “selfish passion” where “their greatness of soul would not permit them to bestow more of their affections upon one than another, their wisdom needed no assistance … & cherished by the weakness of human nature.”  Jay seeks a friendship where

John Jay to Robert Livingston dated July 15, 1765 collection number number 748.

constructive criticism can be given without fear of reproach and pushes for Livingston to do the same, “What foible in your friend have you noted? What imprudences correct?  He certainly is not without foibles – he cannot be free from imprudence – nay he daily sees many of them himself, and many more must be obvious to your penetration.  When then proceeds your silence?”

The second briefer topic is of women and the false nature of flattery.  Livingston in a previous letter makes a distinction between gross (“that which credulity will scarcely believe”) and delicate flattery.  Jay, however, sees the delivery of all flattery as problematic, “Flattery is a kind of compliment, which our judgement tells us, the object to which it is addressed does not merit.”

A junior history seminar paper was written on this letter in 1989 and explores the historical and personal context behind Jay’s remarks.  Both the letter, the paper, and a transcript are available for view in Special Collections.

The famous astronomer and mathematician, Edmond Halley (1656-1742), was the first to identify the periodicity of the comet now known as Halley’s Comet in 1705. Visible to the naked eye, it appears every 75 or 76 years (it last appeared in 1986). But in 1676, only 20 years old, Halley arrived at the South Atlantic island of St. Helena (yes, the same as Napoleon’s site of exile) where he set up an observatory with a 24-foot long aerial telescope and cataloged 341 southern stars, and where he wrote the 1677 letter shown here.

While a full transcription is available to anyone who asks, due to its length, only one especially interesting portion is transcribed here (all spelling and punctuation preserved; the Latin in the second line means “uninhabitable because of the heat”).

St Helena Novemb 21 1677
Dear Sr
… The Island lies in the Torrid Zone as it pleased the ancients to call it, but I assure you it is not inhabitabilis estu but even under the line the heat doth not exceed temperature; and had I the company and accommodations here that England affords, I should prefer a habitation here where neither heat nor cold infest us, I find no fault with the Island, but only that it is not favourable to my purpose for we are almost continually covered with clouds, which hinder us from the sight of the starrs, sometimes for six weeks together, so that I am almost persuaded, I must returne without the full accomplishment of my intents, wch will be the greatest trouble to me, that can possibly happen, by reason I shall give the world cause to judg hardly, and censure me for failing in a thing I had undertaken, but all those that know me, I have the confidence to think, that it will not be attributed either to want of skill or endeavor that I am so unfortunate;

In 1946, one of Haverford’s august alumni, Christopher Morley (class of 1910) presented the college with this extraordinary letter. He was moved to make this generous donation upon seeing it offered in a Goodspeed’s Bookshop (Boston) catalog. He wrote to the dealer “…we used to look off over the open campus northeast of Barclay Hall at Haverford College, spring of 1910, and regard old Halley’s comet streaming in the firmament as an omen for approaching graduation.” Indeed, 1910 was one of the periodic appearances of the comet.

The letter is a part of the Charles Roberts Autograph Letters Collection, replete with many fine letters by scientists such as Halley, as well as from all other areas the human mind can imagine. This and any other of the letters in the collection is available for study.

News has travelled far and wide of the identification within our collection of an unknown letter by René Descartes and the decision to return it to its rightful owner, the Institut de France. On Friday, March 5, about a week after the initial press release Google picked up on the news from Haverford’s new Twitter account and re-tweeted the message to millions world-wide:

“Google searches help uncover stolen Descartes document in ‘rich trove’ at Haverford College.”

This “rich trove,” which has received increased attention since the announcement, is the Charles Roberts Autograph Letters Collection—CRALC, for short.  The collection was amassed by alumnus Charles Roberts, Haverford class of 1864, over the course of his lifetime and was left to the College, along with the money for building Roberts Hall in 1902 by his widow Lucy Branson Roberts.  When bequeathed to the College CRALC included over 12,000 individual letters and since that time has grown to over 20,000 documents.  Like most autograph collections put together in the 19th century, this one centers on the correspondence of American and European gentlemen in areas such as literature, philosophy, politics, government, science, the arts and so on.

Over the course of the coming year Haverford Special Collections will feature on this blog selected letters from CRALC and will further explore the origins of the collection. To start, we begin where Charles Roberts began: the first letter he collected, written to him while still a student by President-elect Abraham Lincoln. The letter, a polite response to Roberts’ request for the politician’s autograph, is dated November 17, 1860, just 11 days after Lincoln won the presidential election. Roberts would go on to collect several more Lincoln letters, and today there are about a dozen Lincoln letters in the collection.